


Two inches to the left of normal

by Vexfulfolly



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Gen, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vexfulfolly/pseuds/Vexfulfolly
Summary: Matt Murdock may or may not have been the Devil himself, but there was certainly something objectively Weird about him. Every aspect of normal humanity was shifted two inches to the left— not quite right but not wrong either. Elusive on the best days and horrific on the worst, Hell’s Kitchen couldn’t have asked for a better watchman.They were meant to be.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48
Collections: Daredevil and Defenders Exchange 2020





	Two inches to the left of normal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thistleflare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistleflare/gifts).



> Hi!!!  
> I really hope you enjoy!! I loved your prompt to trick poor Danny into thinking that Matt was just a bit More Magical than initially expected. Hope I didn’t make it too unusual. Happy Exchange!

Hell’s Kitchen was a perfectly normal pothole in the sidewalk of New York for the longest time, until— it wasn't. Some think it started changing around three or four years ago, some people try to find the exact date. (Some say they’ve found it.) 

No one dares to draw any conclusions from what they’ve found, lest they be heard. 

The fliers just on the outskirts whistle in the wind with sounds that wind nor posters should ever really make. The people are just as lovely as they always are— with vinegar in their veins, and dispositions like the perpetually unrepentant sea. The ‘now entering’ sign is hammered onto a telephone pole that’s leaning more on the adjacent building than it is free-standing. No matter how many times it’s repaired, it somehow always ends up slumped over by the end of the month. There's a circle of buildings— a bad omen— in the development to the furthest right of the town, on top of a slight incline that people just call a hill out of convenience. The few unbroken streetlights the town has managed to scrape together the money for always hiss in the evening. Danny thinks they’re warnings, but what does he know. Sometimes the people there look like they have a few too many scars when their faces are finally glimpsed in the light, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just rather unexpected. It screams of desperation and famine and things that he thought didn’t exist in the great New York. 

The locals always compliment Matt on his sightless dark eyes. _ You can see everything the city has to offer _ , they say. Nobody but Matt himself, and perhaps maybe Clair, seem to know what that is. Danny isn’t exactly sure that he wants to know. 

There’s just something unusual about Hell’s Kitchen that Danny doesn’t understand— and he doesn’t think it has anything to do with the culture shock he’d gone through— and it lies entirely in the town. 

Danny patrols at night, sometimes with Luke, sometimes stalking alongside Jessica, but the nights he most detests are the times he bumps into Matt. The Daredevil: devil of Hell’s Kitchen. It isn’t often that they cross paths, since the man hardly ever leaves the town’s neatly outlined edges. The second Danny’s feet cross the threshold of urban hell, he feels the palpable shift in demeanor. The people are subdued at night, but the air sings like a live wire— happy to be traversed by anyone comfortable enough to endure it. 

It grates on the nerves, that night. 

Within minutes— like clockwork!— there will be a presence at his back, along with a breath of fresh air. The ugly atmosphere that hangs over the city seems to buzz and whisper when Daredevil is around. The night? It  _ loves _ him. 

  
  


Danny asks his fellow vigilantes one night (because apparently Jessica and Luke regularly ‘hang out?’ He didn’t exactly know this beforehand, but it was nice to know moving forward.)

“Hey, so is Matt, like, actually the Devil?” He asked. 

Both paused with food midway to their mouths, jaws hanging in varying degrees of disbelief(?). 

“It’s just odd. From what I understand, most people do not want to associate themselves with an icon as malicious and ill intented as the Christian Devil. He doesn’t seem like a man who would double over on his faith— but if he  _ was _ the Devil, he wouldn’t be betraying any part of his faith because he’d be fulfilling it. Punishing sinners is something that the Devil does, while also reigning over Hell. I chose to believe that there are too many similarities to be a coincidence.” 

“Oh! And I overheard a few locals in the market talking about how he might actually be the Devil— or at least a demon of a slightly lesser rank. Their discussion quickly became indecipherable, but that was what I was able to understand.” He looked at the duo. “Do either of you actually know?” 

Instead of looking gobsmacked, Jessica let out a series of unruly shorts that turned into uncontrollable laughter. She wasn’t cowed by the confusion on Danny’s face— if anything, it made her laugh harder. Luke had the presence of mind to look embarrassed on Danny’s behalf, though he seemed a bit more pained. 

“Listen, Danny, I—“

“—Luke, not another word. I’ve got this,” Jessica beamed. “Look. I don’t know anything for  _ certain _ , but word on the street is that he fought the Devil. Socked the guy right in his smarmy ass face, and the guy was so impressed he offered a deal on the spot.”

The quick silence that enveloped the table was shattered by Danny’s gasp of breath. “Really? So that’s why Hell’s Kitchen is so— so unusual, it’s because there’s actually an opposing energy residing in it.” 

This time Luke let out something of a snerk, and locked eyes with Jessica. Though Danny was too far in his head to notice, she was  _ furiously _ glaring at the man to keep quiet. As of recently Danny had become more— not suspicious, no, that’s not the right word— tentative, perhaps, with who and what he trusted blindly. Apparently, Jessica and Luke were indisputable sources of information (for now, at least). 

  
  
  


Matt Murdock was the devil.

Not in the real, _ actual,  _ sense of the title—where he tempted people to sin or bought people's souls. He didn't greet people in Hell— in fact, he'd really rather that as few people go to Hell on his watch as possible.

It wasn’t exactly his job to pass the final judgement, he was merely there to set up a meeting between crooks and their angry god. 

And God was angry, if the singing in his bones was anything to go by. The guy had to be a real sadist, getting off on the brutality he wove into Matt’s being. 

_ Murdock boys, they got the Devil in ‘em.  _

The latest man he was grinding into the concrete smelt of cheap cigarettes and bottom shelf tequila, the kind he used to drink back in college with the nasty worm at the bottom. Matt— or more accurately put,  _ Daredevil _ — hefted the guy over his shoulder before slamming him into the alley wall. This guy wasn’t difficult in any sense of the word, but you never knew if and when you’d be surprised. Who knows? Maybe this guy could’ve broken out some piecemeal fighting, or tried to smash him up the side of the head with a bottle. People were full of surprises. 

And also the fact that Matt was distracted. Anyone would be, considering he’d been tailed for the last seven blocks and his apathetic bystander was just watching all of this from the lip of the building beside them. 

When the scent of mountain air and ozone hit his senses, Matt instantly recognized the dizzying combination as Danny Rand— his occasional patrol partner and begrudging vigilante brother in arms. 

Or at least that’s what the media liked to say. (It’s not like he’d me amending anything they say anyway, so he’d just have to live with it). 

“You gonna stay up there all night, or are you going to say hello?” 

I’m lieu of an answer, Danny dropped down from the building and stood a respectable distance from Matt and the guy he was now leaving crumpled on the alley floor. 

The tension in Danny’s chest and apprehensive air meant one thing, and one thing only: questions. While Matt could withhold the barbs and annoyed sighs that Jessica often let out, they irked him regardless. 

“You’ve obviously got something to say. Spit it out.” 

Matt would come to regret those words. 

“Is it true that you punched the Devil?” Danny tilted his head. “I was curious as to how you gained your powers, and what it was like making a deal with said Devil.” 

Matt was  _ so _ happy that cigarettes and tequila was thoroughly knocked out, because anyone in their right mind would have lost it had they heard that. It was obviously Jessica’s handiwork because— let’s face it— this was something right up her alley. It’d piss off himself tangentially, while also taking advantage of Danny’s naïveté: a double win. 

_ Well played _ . 

But, hey, two could play at that game. 

“I don’t know where you got the idea that I punched him,” Matt huffed. “I beat him at a game of iSpy. It was close, but I ended up pulling ahead at the end. But don’t go around spreading that— it’ll ruin my image”

Vigorously, Danny nodded his head, intrigue and disbelief coloring his movements. “Of course, you can count on me to keep your secret. I would be honored.”

The corner of Matt’s lips quirked upwards. “Good.”

And with that, he seemed to melt into the night. It took two whole hours before it hit Danny that  _ wait a minute, isn’t Matt blind? _

It left him with far more questions than answers, ones that he was only slightly afraid to ask. 

_ Damn me _ , Matt snickered to himself.  _ Damn me, but Jessica’s right, that was pretty funny.  _

  
  
  


It did nothing to explain why the people of Hell’s Kitchen smiled with too many teeth, or how their eyes could spot an outsider from a mile away. The aura that surrounded the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen never dissipated, nor did Danny ever enter the city unattended. Even when he never caught sight of  _ Daredevil _ he could sense the eyes and ears were always tuned to his location. 

Matt Murdock may or may not have been the Devil himself, but there was certainly something objectively Weird about him. Every aspect of normal humanity was shifted two inches to the left— not quite  _ right _ but not wrong either. Elusive on the best days and horrific on the worst, Hell’s Kitchen couldn’t have asked for a better watchman. 

After all, Matt was Kitchen born and bred, so he fit right in. Maybe it was a Hell’s Kitchen thing, instead of a Matt being the Devil thing. Maybe everyone in that city was two feet to the right of comfortable. When everything around you is shifted one way or the other, a perfectly normal piece somehow becomes out of place. 

Danny still didn’t understand Matt, or his home, but he had a sneaking suspicion They liked it better that way. 

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been since... last exchange since I last wrote these characters— apologies for the stiffness. I hope it was enjoyable either way! <3


End file.
